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CUE 2004

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Building Bridges that Lead to Engineering

CU engineering student Alejandro Reiman leads youngsters at Creekside Elementary in building a planetary rover.

We build bridges. We can"t help it. It's what engineers do. Good bridges reliably move people and things from one place to another, and they remove barriers between islands such as the Florida Keys.

Education is an archipelago, from pre-school through high school, with the highest achieving students island-hopping into the university system. The Integrated Teaching and Learning Program's K-12 initiative builds bridges to facilitate youngsters" travel through the "keys of learning," inspiring awe and understanding of the pervasiveness of engineering at an early age, and cultivating the skills and knowledge that pave the way into engineering college.

With support from the National Science Foundation, the ITL Program creates a variety of in-classroom bridges that help underrepresented high school students gain entrance to the field of engineering. New in summer 2004 is Creative Engineering—Go For It!, a weeklong electro-mechanical design/build workshop to engage youth in the integrative and creative aspects of engineering design.

At Centaurus High School in nearby Lafayette, a new Pre-Engineering Academy offers a four-year engineering sequence. Spearheaded by engineer and teacher Diana Wiant, the track offers courses ranging from Bioengineering to Computer Integrated Manufacturing. The ITL Program supports K-12 Fellows teaching engineering weekly to fifth through ninth grade students in Centaurus's five feeder schools, and offers extensive summer design/build workshops for students in the Pre-Engineering Academy.

A partnership with the newly-founded Denver School of Science and Technology urban charter high school, opening fall 2004, will pair ITL Program K-12 Fellows with teachers to integrate engineering and technology throughout the school's project-based, technology-enhanced curricula. The summer Creative Engineering—Go For It! workshop will be the first bridge we"ll cross together on our pre-engineering journey.

And, who says students can"t really do engineering until college? We hope to teach our First-Year Engineering Projects course at both high schools, for CU credit. If students can earn university AP credit for physics and calculus, then why not for actually creating things, which is at the core of all engineering?

For more information on the ITL Program's K-12 initiative, contact Jackie Sullivan at 303-492-8303.